


What We Know of Time

by TessMooreXF



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-04-11 16:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4442699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TessMooreXF/pseuds/TessMooreXF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Small vignettes, counting backwards from 2016. (Warning -- Revival spoilers in Chapter 1 only.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Rise and Fall of Tad O'Malley

"I can't believe he thought he could get you drunk." Mulder eases his hand in soothing circles around her shoulder blades, alternating between the two so as not to leave one feeling needy. She leans back into his touch, her back aching after a day of work, followed by an evening of snooping and conniving. Scully sighs and wishes her jacket to melt from her body; the back rub would be so much better if only she could feel his short nails scratching against her. For that matter, she wishes to be magically and immediately swathed in the soothing waters of the over sized bathtub in her swanky new Georgetown apartment. Sadly, the little backwoods, unremarkable house is only owner to a very mediocre tub and a poor water heater. 

"First of all," Scully sighs contentedly, "I don't really know that he was trying to get me drunk. Secondly, IF he was trying get me drunk, what exactly about Tad O'Malley's personality makes that unbelievable?" 

Mulder chuckles. "Bastard. You're right; You know, I didn't think that those people were real." 

Scully pulls away from him and finally throws her jacket to the floor by the bed, uncaring. "Jesus, it's hot in here, Mulder. Would it kill you to open a window?" 

Mulder throws a sideways glance at her, but doesn't bother expressing what they both know he's thinking. Humoring her, he makes his way to the window on her side of the bed. 

"Those people..." She continues, fanning the newly exposed outside air towards her face. "You mean political commentators? What, are they aliens now?" 

Mulder chuffs, throwing himself back down beside her. Amusement flickers on her face while the bed bounces erratically. "They may as well be. Really; I thought those guys said whatever it took to reel in the gullible and downright idiotic, just to make a buck. I always figured they went home like normal people -- maybe morally ambiguous people, but relatively normal. But that guy's got a "jackass" sign hanging from his neck, clear as day." 

"Well, that "jackass" sign is working to our advantage right now. He's too much of a moron to see that he's being manipulated by both sides." 

"Admit it, Scully." Mulder pulls her closer, watching her eyes deepen. He loves the way her face relaxes and her eyes sharpen when she responds to him. It never gets old. "You enjoy this double agent stuff." 

"If it means getting what we want and moving on with our lives, I'll love it as long as it takes." Her smile fades. "I just wish the information could have helped Sveta." 

Mulder nods. "I wish we could help everyone. It's a silent war, Scully, but a war nonetheless. There are bound to be casualties." 

"I just hope it's all worth it, Mulder. I really do." She sinks down into the pillows and he follows her, urging her head into the crook of his shoulder. The moment is long and silent, and Mulder can feel her thinking deeply. His hand roams the nape of her neck, this time tickling with his fingertips and playing with her hair. He loves the fullness of it. It's so womanly, and he loves the fact that she's allowed herself her femininity, after years of denying and hardening herself. A couple decades down the line, she looks more like the woman he first met than the woman who came to grow from the ensuing circumstances. She looks like Dana. 

She speaks first, her voice little more than a whisper. "I've missed you. The apartment is ready when you are." 

Mulder leans down to plant a peck on her lips. She invites him in hungrily, desperate for something deeper. He acquiesces, filling her mouth and cradling her head. When they disengage, he turns to look at her more fully, crooking his hips towards her. "It won't be long. The Gunmen almost have clearance into the warehouse. I'm certain that's where they're housing the virus. We just need to keep up appearances and keep O'Malley distracted long enough mobilize the team and swipe it."

"And when he hears I've, coincidentally, gone back to the FBI with the man he knows as my ex-husband?" Scully smiles crookedly. 

"He'll be suspicious." Mulder smiles darkly. "But it'll be long gone by then, buried in the middle of the desert, in a compound built by three men who've been dead for fourteen years." 

Scully raises her eyebrows. "There'll be a price on our heads again." 

"You said it yourself, Scully -- there's not really much of a choice. This is what we're meant to do -- I'm as certain as I ever was. We'll have the protection and resources of the FBI again. It's time to finish it." 

Scully nods and leans in for another short kiss, inviting him to roll her over. He's tender when he runs his hand down her midsection, but his eyes are ravenous. 

She smiles sweetly, and he settles his weight between her shifting legs. "It's time, Mulder."


	2. Hanging in the Balance

The sky looks a little charged and dangerous when he finds her, legs absentmindedly dangling from the slat of the old wooden swing. It's partner has long rotted into the ground, but there are flecks of red paint still clinging to the remaining counterpart. Its chain is fiery-rusted and the entire contraption looks a deadly sort of unstable. Mulder doesn't mention it. The swing set lives in the nether-regions of their back yard, curiously pointed to look at the dense trees hugging their property line. When they first moved in, they'd argued back and forth about what had happened preceding them -- terrible, ghostly things tended to take the blame for long-abandoned houses, no? The pieces of toys half-settled into the ground are unsettling and make him shudder -- it's a disturbing sort of graveyard. 

"Why didn't we ever clean this up, Mulder?" He knows she could hear him rustling through the sun-baked grass, but he lets himself imagine that their inexplicable tether tells her when he's near. 

He shrugs, though he knows she can't see him. Her hair rustles out of it's braid when the wind picks up, it's catchy vermilion dulled in the green-gray atmosphere. "I don't know, Scully. It just seemed... wrong to disturb them." 

Now her sweater has joined her hair in a game of wind-borne tag. "You always have believed that the dead deserve their peace." 

Mulder knits his brow and hops over a large stone to walk into her line of sight. She still watches the swaying trees beyond the yard, her lips set in melancholy. She finally turns to look at him when his hand falls to her shoulder. His thumb kneads at her collarbone through the sweater. "They're just toys." 

Her smile is more like a conciliatory wince. "But they belonged to somebody once. A little boy or girl who loved them and needed them before they were suddenly thrown to pasture." Mulder isn't lost on the parallel to their own lives and paths, and he's always enjoyed the more poetic side of his partner. She continues, "I think I'm just bothered by the things I didn't take the time to fix, or even notice. You've been a free man for years, and you're still secreted away in our little house of horrors. Meanwhile, I haven't stopped to enjoy you; to enjoy our home. I'm being uprooted before I've had the chance realize how much I'll miss it. How much I'll miss you." 

"You've been busy, Scully." He urges her to stand up, and she does so reluctantly. Unsure what to say, he places the focus squarely on her, taking attention away from the piles of maps and books and oddities awaiting him in the house. "You've been finding yourself again." 

Scully lets him pull her into a warm hug, and the wind whips violently. They'd best be heading inside if they don't want to be soaked. She does take the moment to savor his closeness, though. "Actually, Mulder, I think I've managed to lose sight of myself."

He pulls out of the hug and slips his hand over hers, ready to lead her back to their simple little house, soon to be his simple little cave. "I seem to recall you said that to me once before. I also seem to remember that it wasn't so much that you lost sight of yourself, as that you'd lost sight of the changes along the way. It happens to us all, Scully." 

"What am I going to do without you?" She smiles at him coyly while they meander up to their porch. She'd begun stacking packed boxes outside of the door frame, and she's hopeful the rain doesn't leave them a soggy mess - it'll take several trips to get them all to her crisp, clean new apartment. 

"It's only temporary... and it's going to be worth it." Mulder's hand tangles into her hair. "You'll see." 

Scully's own hands come up to his shirt collar, affectionately straightening it. "It better. I'm too old to start over, Mulder." 

"You're not old." His smile is shy and goofy, and she loves it. He can still make her feel good about herself. "You're still a Betty to me." 

The melancholy has returned to her face. "I'd better pack the car and get started out. If I don't get on my way to DC tonight, we're going to screw up the plan tomorrow." 

Mulder's hands drop from her hair, and he goes to grab one of the packed boxes from the doorway. On his way to the car, he precariously balances the box between a wrist and knee so he can press a peck of a kiss onto her make-up free and gloriously freckled cheek. "One year, Scully. We can do this." 

A moment later, the first of many boxes is placed into her new car, ready for the new life she doesn't at all want.


End file.
